


Stray Silver

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: Some cats are just big, right? Like looking at it is kind of intimidating, but then again...its eyes are really pretty and it’s quite friendly. Should be safe...right?
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Comments: 16
Kudos: 188
Collections: DreamXmas 2019





	Stray Silver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transming/gifts).



> DreamXmas secret santa gift number two! It was a privilege to write for Dylan, who also (coincidentally!) wrote for me!
> 
> I dearly hope you enjoy what I've written for you ;; Merry DreamXmas ♡

Some cats are just big, right? Like looking at it is kind of intimidating, but then again... its eyes are really pretty and it’s quite friendly, so at some point, How Large This Cat Is has left Jeno’s active mind entirely.

It’s probably not a universal experience, but Jeno doesn’t mind being the sole bearer of this disconcerting but welcome reality.

Whatever. Cats are inherently a little terrifying. It’s no big deal.

* * *

This cat is truly too large for a normal cat, but Jeno has a weakness in dual forms: cats, and cats. The former because he likes cats and the latter because he’s allergic to them. The first time he sees this one, his sneeze is in greater part a knee-jerk fear reaction rather than an allergic one. One does not merely gaze upon a cat the size of a standard dog and not have a terribly irregular response (such as sneezing in alarm, which he does).

“Oh good god,” is what he says after the sneeze, pinching his nose to keep a second one from coming.

There’s a little alley between the nearby bakery and convenience store where a wealth of cats reside. It’s unusually cute for a basic alleyway—clean with a few miscellaneous bowls of water and chalk art on the bakery wall of various cats. Jeno recalls a singular time someone vandalized the building and the general public threw a fit.

Most of the alleycats are of a basic size. Relatively healthy any aggression aside (one cat is missing a good chunk of his ear and there are various fingers pointed to the grumpy grey cat for the blame), fairly friendly, occasionally like to say hello and rub up on some strangers’ legs.

Jeno has made it a habit since he left home to love on whichever cats are present in this alleyway as he makes his way to university—he’s been doing it for months, now, and it improves nearly every morning by a significant degree. He’s named some of them in his head. Mostly food names based on what his breakfast is.

It’s only fair that the largest and most unusual cat he’s seen in this alleyway gets a different name.

He’ll be honest: this cat terrifies him.

It’s a beautiful, silver long-haired cat with gold eyes, which would have been an intimidating combination on any feline. It’s worse on one that looks like it could eat him. It watches him from the boxes in the alleyway, tail flicking as he pets two cats vying for his attention and stares.

He blinks because of the three or four sneezes he stifles, but it continues to look on without boredom, paws prim at the edge of the box in untrimmed tufts. There’s no collar that he can immediately see—especially not in the midst of a sneezing fit.

“Hey,” he says, and the cat finally blinks while he sifts his fingers through the brown coat of a cat near his ankle. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” he says mostly for his own sake. He feels like maybe he’s having a fever dream.

The cat’s tail flicks and then it jumps down from the boxes with silence and delicacy. All cats are quiet, but Jeno is still intimidated as the cat approaches. He reaches out a hand in respect and fear. It ignores the step where it sniffs at him completely and rubs its entire face up his knuckles and forearm. He’s mentally and emotionally shaken when the cat brings its paws up unto his crouched thigh and looks right up close at him, gold eyes glinting and pupils big and round.

“Hi,” Jeno says, not breathing at all in case his allergies kick in violently. The cat touches its nose to his cheek, rubs up against his arm, then releases him from its interest, drifting away from him and back to its boxes.

He feels a little like he’s been visited by a deity of some sort.

It’s all he can think of for the rest of the day.

* * *

He experiences only slightly less alarm when the cat is still there the next day. Still on its boxes. Jeno shudders out a breath and tries to do his normal ritual. Greet the cats that want to see him and try not to startle them with his allergies. 

Except.

Except he very much wants this deity-like cat to approach him again.

He thinks that maybe he’ll do better this time. Touch it back a little. Maybe properly enjoy how soft its coat is.

It feels like deja vu with how the cat stares at him, unblinking from its perch, but it does not jump down. Jeno has made it through three cats and it has watched the entirety of his visit.

Jeno straightens under its eyes and takes only two steps toward the large cat, watching for its spine to tense or its pupils to narrow.

It does none of those things, but it does flick its tail in interest.

“Can I touch you?” Jeno asks, because maybe such an incredible cat has a human consciousness. He doesn’t know. In truth, he’s still scared.

The cat makes no move to deny him this possible pleasure, so Jeno crosses the rest of the distance carefully and with as much respect as he can communicate through walking, then reaches for its back. It curves under his touch, rolling with and leaning into it, eyes fixed on his own. It’s an alarming and somehow vulnerable experience.

He’s just as shaken when he leaves this time as he was the day before.

* * *

It gets easier, though. The cat remains and he witnesses its existence every morning—now even on the days he doesn’t have classes.

He’d been too transfixed the first time to realize, but its coat is lush and alarmingly silky. The second time he experiences it, he gets a full-body shiver.

With the fifth visit, the cat closes its eyes while he pets it, and the trust inherent in the display excites him to a degree he cannot physically manage to be ashamed of. It’s such a pretty, flawless cat. He’s enthralled. Naturally, he’s obsessed with the idea of this cat enjoying him and maybe even trusting him a little. Jeno knows, at the very least, that he gives good pets.

* * *

Some issues begin when he realizes he’s the only one to have interacted with this specimen. Having not had breakfast, he pops into the bakery one morning and mentions the silver cat in passing to the coffee barista.

“Oh,” says the barista, “that sounds pretty! I haven’t seen that one though, no.”

“Oh,” Jeno says back, feeling kind of dumb while he collects his hot chocolate. “Huh.”

He finds an excuse to visit the convenience store and ask there, too, and the lady who works there is Fairly Positive She Has Never Seen That Cat. Like with all things relating to That Cat, Jeno is shaken. This time, though, he tries to ignore the feeling. What is he to do? Bring a neighbor along and hope the cat exists in that moment?

He’d rather live in denial.

* * *

Two weeks pass and the cat comes to him when he visits the alleyway, and maybe he comes earlier than usual lately in order to take his time carding his fingers through its glossy coat. “What’s your sex?” Jeno asks—he’s never looked. Never once has the creature shown its belly to him or flicked its tail high enough, and he wasn’t about to push it over or heft it up to check for genitals. He still feels like he’s being impolite even now, and the cat gives him what he feels is a dry look to further compound the feeling.

“I’m sorry,” he says, feeling silly but amused at this interaction nonetheless. “Does it matter?”

The cat flicks its tail and reaches out to lightly gnaw on his forefinger.

“I won’t look,” Jeno promises, and kneels down on the pavement, taking a moment to wipe his nose with a spare tissue. His eyes have started to itch, but he doesn’t dare touch them. “If you’re a boy, put your paws on my right thigh. If you’re a girl, left thigh,” he says, then hesitates. “If you’re neither, scratch me.”

The cat stares at him with mellow gold, tail flicking and silver hair aglitter. It mews once in a sweet, nasal tinkle, then primly lays one paw on his right thigh. Jeno blinks. The cat blinks back once, then flexes its claws to pierce through Jeno’s pants. He winces. The cat withdraws his paw.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll take your word for it.” He feels uncomfortable and unsure—just for the sake of it, he may as well take the coincidence and run with it. Call the cat a boy. But the action is very… Jeno isn’t sure how to interpret… 

It’s… 

weird.

* * *

It takes time for him to accept that maybe he really is messing with something unnatural—bonding with a cat that very likely might not be real or reliably existent. If he thinks too much about it, he starts worrying about whether he has a disorder, but the cat is not intrusive on any other part of his reality aside from the alleyway.

He lets the issue go and allows himself to continue enjoying the cat.

* * *

“Haechan,” Jeno offers the cat, and it blinks at him, rubbing insistently up his arm and then all the way up against his shoulder. He feels his whiskers against his cheek. “Usually I give food names, but you don’t look like a Bibimbap. So Haechan.” The cat mewls once, and for the first time, Jeno feels him purr against him—right up against the soft skin of his neck. Jeno freezes and murmurs quietly, “It means full sun.” The cat rubs his face under his chin and continues purring.

“Okay,” Jeno says, voice shaking, and he carefully touches his hands to Haechan’s stretched back, drifting his fingertips over the healthy feel of his spine. Haechan is still comparatively little against the size of a human. Jeno has been nothing less than gentle.

* * *

When he says the interactions get easier, he does not mean he leaves any of his interactions without being minutely unsettled. Haechan warms steadily to him, purring more frequently against the more fragile parts of his skin. He starts chirping in greeting when Jeno comes in sight, and his heart always startles as this big, lithe, and graceful cat deems him special. Somehow.

Haechan makes his hands shake, but at the same time, he loves the interactions he collects. Loves the progress and also the slow-growing delight Haechan shows when spotting him.

The world moves on, but with Haechan in it, and though Jeno is unnerved at the base of his being, he’s grateful to have it move on with this addition.

* * *

Finals hit, of course—the task is inevitable—and he makes it through them just fine from a removed, less-detailed perspective. He passes, and snags some As, but he averages an abysmal amount of sleep and calories in favor of academia, and his body is as human as a body gets. There’s a phenomenon he dislikes called the “let-down effect,” which essentially enables all of his stress and panic to come down on him as soon as he’s out of the storm.

That is to say: he’s terribly sick.

It happens regularly enough that he’s not too surprised or disappointed when he wakes up like summer decay, but his expectations don’t lessen the degree of his opposition to being sick on his first free day after finals.

He wallows in bed a little, wishing his roommate safe travels when Seungmin pops in to make sure he’s alive. Jeno waves away his offer to put the kettle on, positive it would be better to force himself out of the inertia he’s fixed for himself.

He mostly stays to his bed, though, and tries to sleep off the hours he missed like filling a sleep deficit is an attainable goal and not an irrecoverable loss.

The only benefit to being sick, in Jeno’s miserable opinion, is that he finally has an unavoidable berth of time to read for pleasure. He does this very slowly. With his sinuses clogged and a headache because of it, reading slowly is the best he can do.

* * *

One day melts into two, and Jeno’s not terribly fussed. He’s not starving (he only has delivery to thank for that), he was able to cover his shifts at work, and he’s very nearly done with his terribly dry but very informative book on artificial intelligence.

It’s only a knock on the front door that brings him out of his fever-hazed reluctance to uproot himself from his bedroom. He ignores the first knock, of course, like any average human, properly notices the second knock, and then rattles through his brain by the third knock—who could be visiting? His mom was unlikely (she would have texted him), and Jaemin was in Europe living his sufficiently bilingual reality, and really no one else would even presume to visit him at… 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

By the fourth knock, Jeno is worried and is properly in the process of dislocating himself from his sheets. “Who is it?” he croaks, and his voice sounds like a creaky disposal. Clearing his throat hurts, though, so he coughs once and determines not to call out again.

Instead, he shuffles through the apartment and leans into the door, not really bothering to check through the peephole (no one really uses those, do they?), as he fumbles with the lock.

He probably should have checked the peephole.

“Who are you?” Jeno immediately hears, and it’s probably the worst thing to ask a sick person because… well… it doesn’t really make sense.

“Wh—”

“And why have you stopped visiting?”

Jeno focuses in, bewildered by a set of questions that seem entirely left-field. This is not normally how opening doors on an errant knocker goes.

He sees a boy—maybe around his age—with silver waves and eyes that burn with indignance and gold.

Jeno is very sick, and extremely unnerved, and he doesn’t like this development because this boy looks a lot like a certain cat he decided to name Haechan.

Jeno’s mouth moves on autopilot in his confusion. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money. Have a nice day.”

He sees the flash of fury in the eyes of the boy as he moves to close the door, and if he were any less sick, he’d be startled. Instead, his actions are delayed and then suddenly the boy is  _ in  _ his apartment and Jeno is distantly scared. Sickness does remarkable things for the cowardly.

“Do you have a disease?” the boy asks, stepping way too close and forcing the door closed with his hand. Jeno lets go of the knob.

He thinks the boy’s word choice is unfair. “I’m… unwell,” Jeno says, and considers pushing the boy away. “You look a lot like a cat I know,” he says after, his brain properly removed from his mouth.

“I  _ am _ the cat you know,” says the boy, and somehow Jeno finds himself on the old couch, staring at the blank television. “Haechan, I think you call me—heaven forbid I know your name.” Jeno turns his head to watch… Haechan… rifle through his cabinets. He should be more alarmed.

He isn’t.

“Oh.”

Haechan snorts indelicately as he extracts a clean mug from the shelves left of the microwave. “And I thought you’d died or something, but no you’re just a blob of virus.”

Jeno is insulted. “I’m at least partially dead,” he suggests.

“Clever,” Haechan retorts, and Jeno thinks by that response that he probably very much isn’t. “What’s your name?” Haechan insists, placing the water-filled mug in the microwave. “And where’s your tea?”

“Right of the sink.”

Haechan stares at him, gold eyes burning. Jeno thinks they look much more intense as a human. Or maybe he’s not human. Maybe he’s not real. Jeno  _ is _ sick, after all.

“Name,” Haechan insists. “Or is it sacred?”

“Lee Jeno,” Jeno says finally, and Haechan looks marginally less upset. “Are you really the cat in the alleyway?”

Haechan doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. I’m felinthropic.” The microwave dings and he retrieves the mug, setting it on the counter to rifle through Jeno and Seungmin’s tea stash. “It’s genetic.”

“You’re a really big cat,” Jeno says, and he kind of wishes he could feel a little more lucid for this conversation.

“And you’re taking this pretty well,” Haechan says, and dips the mystery bag into the hot water. Jeno thinks it would be impolite to tell him about the kettle at this point.

“Yes, well, I’m very sick,” Jeno supplies, and Haechan’s huff almost resembles a laugh. Jeno has the capacity to feel pleased. “Are you real?”

Haechan, closer now, wrinkles his nose. He settles on the couch and tucks his legs up, passing over the mug. “I don’t want to have an existential discussion with a fevered human.”

“Are you not human?”

“I’m partially human.”

Jeno hums, pressing the rim of the mug to his lips. He can smell (kind of, not really) that it’s mint. It’s too hot to drink, so he looks at Haechan instead. The boy’s wearing black jeans with a loose and light sort of tucked-in tunic. His legs are quite long and his skin is warm-toned. All-in-all, Jeno’s rather glad he’s sick because while he has the capacity to be pleased, he has a lesser capacity to feel attracted to a pseudo-cat.

Haechan stays seated, and fidgets, then says, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Jeno feels a sense of loss already. “As a human or a cat?”

“Human, probably, unless you want me to scream at you from the window.”

Jeno hums again, noncommittal, and watches with a morose shred of feeling as Haechan lifts off the couch and retrieves his shoes. He hadn’t even realized Haechan had taken off his shoes in the first place.

“Tomorrow, then,” Jeno says.

“Finish your tea,” says Haechan in lieu of a goodbye. Exeunt Haechan.

Jeno feels simultaneously bereft  _ and _ pathetic. He drinks his tea.

* * *

The greater part of him believes Haechan will not return. Jeno’s fever breaks in the night, and he’s convinced himself he’s gone a little crazy. Which, you know. Happens.

He’s cooking rice when the door knocks at him.

Jeno stares at it.

It knocks again, primly and with impatience.

Jeno hums and crosses over to it. For the first time in his life, he uses the peephole. He’s used to feeling shaken by now, and opens the door for Haechan.

“You smell less sick,” he observes, looking golden and… what’s a non-committal, less-than-revealing word? Hygienic?

“You look good,” says Jeno, and for the first time, he can actually smell something like vanilla when Haechan walks in.

“Yes,” Haechan agrees, and Jeno is less than disconcerted. If he was personally insecure, he might find Haechan embracing the compliment annoying, but he’s not and finds no harm in Haechan having confidence. It befits a cat. Pseudo-human. Felinthrope.

In any case, Haechan  _ does _ look good—inherently and decoratively. He’s wearing shorts and a pinched tee the color of wine. He has pretty legs.

Jeno wishes he was more sick again.

“I’m making lunch,” Jeno says, watching him and trying to decide if Haechan is a trespasser he’s now allowed into his apartment twice.

“You cook?”

“It saves money.”

Haechan wanders over to the rice cooker and does nothing more, seemingly unsure this time what to do with himself. “Do you want to stay to eat?” Jeno asks, knowing already what he wants the answer to be.

“If it’s good,” Haechan sniffs, but there’s curiosity in his golden eyes, so Jeno thinks he’s won, somewhat. He moves over to him to collect a pan from one of the cabinets.

“Why’d you come find me?” Jeno asks, setting the pan on the stove and moving on to the refrigerator to rummage for the ingredients he’d prepped before he’d remembered the rice.

Haechan is silent.

Jeno lets him be. He’s learned that some people need time to find the right response and some people will never reply with the trust that he’ll fill the silence for them. He’s not very good at that, so he usually waits, and usually something comes out of it.

“I thought you were interesting,” Haechan finally says, watching as Jeno melts a pat of butter at the bottom of the pan.

Past tense.

Doesn’t bode well.

“I’m honored,” Jeno says, honest, though doesn’t dare make eye-contact. He spills the vegetables he’d chopped into the pan as the butter starts to bubble.

“Why do you pet cats if you’re allergic?” Haechan asks, and it’s borderline demanding. Somehow, Jeno is endeared.

“Because I like them.” He’s always reckoned he’s the lactose-intolerant of the cat world. Fully aware of the effects of his sins and decisively, stubbornly intent on ignoring them. “My allergies aren’t too bad. They go away.”

Haechan fidgets next to him, the small of his back leaning into the lip of the counter.

“I’m still contagious, by the way,” Jeno says. “My fever only broke this morning.”

“I don’t get sick.” Haechan sounds adamant. Maybe irritated. Jeno looks up from his stir fry to see him for the first time in a few minutes, and Haechan immediately softens under even the glance of attention.

“That’s nice,” Jeno says, unsure what else to say. Haechan is terribly pretty. Also alarmingly close. He doesn’t remember noticing Haechan get this close. “Are you going to kill me?”

Genuine confusion registers in Haechan’s perspective and Jeno properly falls—attraction is a slippery slope and he’s gone and scraped his knees to bits. If Haechan leans any closer, he’ll kiss this damn cat. “No. I think I like you too much for that.”

Jeno short-circuits over the bold remark. “Huh.  _ Could _ you kill me?”

Haechan blinks, eyes molten and gorgeous. “Probably.”

“Huh.”

If Jeno thought Haechan was pretty before, his opinion is grandly outmatched by what Haechan looks like when he smiles. It starts small and then shines a little bigger, and Jeno wonders if it’s totally inappropriate to fall for a human he’s only just met. Granted, he’s known the cat for weeks, but he doesn’t want to kiss the cat. Not like this.

“Can I visit you tomorrow?” Haechan asks, and Jeno hardly hears the rice cooker beep.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Jeno says. “Anytime.”

Haechan touches his elbow. The contact burns. He slips away to care for the rice, and Jeno is left staring at his stir fry and falling into a crush that he didn’t really see coming.

_ Well, it’s probably fine, _ he thinks. No big deal.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun tackling this prompt. I desperately hope everyone enjoys reading as much as I did writing it ;;
> 
> Let me know what you think? ♡ 
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)   
>  [curiouscat](https://t.co/zW26zmaxzw?amp=1)   
>  [tellonym](https://tellonym.me/solananne)


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